Blue-Gray
by SoManyFandoms OwO
Summary: Berk is a mere shell of what it used to be. Everyone's lost something and pain is no stranger. In this hopeless world, there are still a few who are fairly unaffected. Hiccup is one such person, spending his days running around with his friend, Astrid, or tinkering with his mentor, Gobber. However, when tragedy strikes, will it crush him or serve as a catalyst for change? (AU)


**Hey there! I'mSoManyFandoms OwO. This is my new project: "Blue-Gray." For those of you who came here from "Hailey," thanks for giving me another shot. Those of you who have never read my stuff before, nice to meet you! This is a story that is quite different from my other HTTYD story, "Hailey," in that it doesn't follow the same structure as the movie. It's refreshing, in a way. The first chapter is split into two parts. The first part is the prologue. The second part is chapter one. I'm still fairly new to the whole fanfiction-writing gig, so please be mindful of that! I'm open to suggestions, so feel free to PM me or review! Favorite and/or follow if you enjoyed!**

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 **IMPORTANT: Okay, so with my last story, there were a lot of really supportive and awesome people! It was really cool, and it still is! It's still in progress if you were wondering, and I definitely will post the next chapter when I'm ready. Anyway, I wanted to find a way to communicate with my readers (ex. announcements and story updates), but I couldn't really find a good way. At least, I haven't yet. So, I made a survey. The link is in my profile thing because doesn't like links R.I.P.**

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 **Prologue: Still Okay**

This is Berk.

This is the place where everything is gray: the land, the people.

It's an awfully gloomy and desolate place that is an empty husk of what it used to be. The older generation says that it used to be a beautiful island with huge trees and cliffs and rock formations. Nowadays, much of the forest is gone, and huge gaping holes have taken its place. The stone that had been there is currently part of the crumbling remainders of the scattered stone huts that make up the Berkian village.

The villagers aren't much better off. They've managed to keep their ancestral viking blubber for the most part, despite the fact that their diet now consists of over-cloned and over-modified food delivered from the capital known as Central. However, every face is grim and every eye is bleak and with exhaustion and despair.

Except for a select few.

One such person is a skinny ten-year-old lad known as Hiccup. He's lost just as much as the last person, maybe more. To his knowledge, his parents vanished when he was three, leaving him with his two-limbed godfather, Gobber. He doesn't know where or why they went. They could be dead for all he knows. But little Hiccup is an optimist. His creative brain spins its gears relentlessly, fueled by hopes and dreams. Machines and inventions construct and deconstruct themselves in his head, sometimes spilling out of his mouth. He spends all his time tinkering at Gobber's hut or running around with his best and only friend, Astrid. He isn't weighed down by his losses or his past.

So, by Berk's recent standards, he was okay. More than okay, really. But as we've seen in our older villagers, no one is okay forever.

In fact, today is the day that will change things for Hiccup, as well as his friend Astrid.

Our story starts on the beautiful morning of July 17th. Hiccup is sitting on a stool in Gobber's workshop, chattering his mouth off as usual. His eyes are bright with joy and his legs are swinging back and forth restlessly. In a couple minutes, Astrid will burst in, handing in her little practice weapon for maintenance and then scampering off to the village with Hiccup.

And by tomorrow, everything will have changed.

How does it change, exactly? We'll have to see.

So grab a snack, sit down, and maybe grab some tissues too. This is a story you won't want to miss out on. Hopefully.

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 **Chapter 1: A Broken Place, A Broken People**

 **Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III**

Hiccup gestured wildly with his hands, "Gobber, this one will help! Really!"

The chunky man took a glance at the boy's sketch and replied, "I know it will, one day, lad. But you can't go around blowing up the hut every time you get a great idea."

"That was last time," Hiccup insisted, "this time is different! I'm older!"

"By two months."

"But-" He was interrupted by the sudden crash of a door against a wall.

A blond-haired missile zoomed in. "Hi, Hiccup! Hi, Gobber!" She shoved her LRM-71 - Laser Radiation Micro Model 71 - into Gobber's worn hands.

In their present age, no more were the guns of bullets, or metal weapons of an earlier time, but guns with laser ammunition. Unfortunately for Berk, that was the tip of the iceberg when it came to scary technology.

Astrid poked Hiccup playfully, "You're taking forever, let's go!"

"I know, I know, I just need to put it away… carefully…"

"He's made something to do with electricity this time. Better stay out of a kilometer radius in case this one blows, lass," Gobber chuckled.

Hiccup frowns from behind his workbench, "But it won't blow. And, for the record, this is an electric bola, which releases crazy amounts of electricity to short-circuit the-"

"Hiccup, come on! I think I'll be old when you're done at this rate!" Astrid interrupted.

Hiccup held up his hands in surrender, "Fine, fine! I'm putting my stuff down! Jeez!"

Gobber watched the two kids leave, heaving a great sigh, "At a place like this, everyone's practically born old."

"Hey, Granny!" Astrid called cheerfully, waving at an elderly lady who stared blankly into the streets. She looked up, caught off guard.

"Hello, there, Astrid," she glanced at the person next to her. "Hello to you too, Hiccup."

"Good morning, ma'am," Hiccup replied quietly, "How's your new house?"

"It's quite dreary, all of the huts look the same. Gray here, gray there; I can't tell the difference between this house and the one that got blown up a while ago!" Granny's eyes clouded over. "A long time ago, this used to be a beautiful place with… green."

"Green? Like the grass that grows out of the cracks in the rocks?" Hiccup asked thoughtfully.

Granny nodded, "Yes, dear, except back then, it was everywhere. Rolling hills and giant meadows, gurgling creeks, although, those weren't actually green… no holes in the ground like someone took a bite out of it… trees… doesn't that all sound beautiful?"

"It does, Granny!" Astrid smiled, "Was it like that when you were a girl?"

"I'm afraid not. It was back when my own mother was a girl. She would always describe true, natural green as something like the ocean… except greener." Granny snorted, "Like that helps." Hiccup noticed that some life had returned to her eyes. He realized that in another time, they had been pretty, probably exactly like Astrids' now. "Anyway," she continued, "would you children like to go on an adventure with me?"

"Yes!" Astrid grinned, her eyes sparkling. "I'd love to! So would Hiccup! Right, Hiccup?"

"Sure," Hiccup murmured, offering his own shy smile.

And so they went. Half an hour had passed when Granny gasped in delight.

"What is it, Granny?"

Granny's voice was warm, "A flower. A Bluebell, to be exact."

There it was, a small but determined thing, barely clinging onto the gravelly soil of the area. On it was exactly four delicate flowers, all the same shade of indigo. A slight breeze blew, making the bluebells shiver violently. All four blossoms remained stubbornly on the stalk. "It's not really blue," Astrid grumbled.

"It's still pretty, though," Hiccup said.

"There's four of them," Astrid observed, "one for me, you, Granny, and… Gobber, I guess. Four little flowers, happy, colorful, and…"

"Alive," Hiccup added bluntly.

Astrid frowned in his direction, but Hiccup's attention was on Granny who was staring at the flower, almost drinking in its presence. "Your mother would have loved to see this, Astrid."

Hiccup watched as Astrid flinched, her eyes filling with amounts of sorrow that ten-year-olds shouldn't know. She hated it when Granny mentioned her mother, Hiccup knew. Astrid had lost both of her parents in a single raid, but at times, Granny's attachment to her mother made it seem like she had lost her as well. She hated how Granny was sometimes more preoccupied with her dead daughter than her living granddaughter. She hated not having a chance to grieve, instead doing the things that Granny should have done. She hated the days she would come home to see Granny frozen in a chair, her gaze empty and hopeless. Hiccup tried his best to help, but sometimes there was just nothing he could do. This time, he attempted to cheer her up with a smile.

Astrid met his eyes and smiled gratefully. She then shrugged and turned back to Granny. "Should we head-"

Hiccup saw Astrid's eyes widen with alarm. Next, he saw the shadows passing over the area. He knew what this was in an instant. "We need to get somewhere safe! Now!"

Astrid nodded in agreement, "Granny! It's a raid!"

This startled her back to the present. Wordlessly, they hurried away from the village, towards the giant stone ditches. They had been through this before, many times.

In their hurry, none of them realized that they had trampled the Bluebells.

Loud creaks and whirrs of machinery echoed across the land and into their ditch, huge explosions and the crackling of fire rung violently in their ears.

They huddled together in a corner. "We're pretty far from home. We should be okay," Astrid whispered.

Granny wasn't paying attention. She was staring into space again. Astrid's eyes darkened and she turned away from her. "I hate this. This is awful."

Hiccup reached out and grabbed her hand, "Don't worry, Astrid. No matter what happens, you'll have me."

Astrid's intense gaze softened as the corners of her lips curled in a smile. "Thank you," she whispered.

He shrugged nonchalantly. He noticed that everything was eerily silent. "I think we can head back now."

Astrid nodded curtly. Hiccup could see that she was already steeling her nerves, just as he was. There was no telling what they would see and what kind of loss they would be faced with once they got back to the village. One by one, they stood up.

Hiccup looked down to realize that his hand was still holding Astrid's. Suddenly embarrassed, he let go, earning him a slightly confused look from Astrid. "Let's g-go," he stammered.

The village was a wreck. Small fires everywhere, being put out by tired-looking people, crumbled stone lying in the streets, it was chaos. There was the occasional wail ringing out into the sky, conveying so much sorrow, evidence that one's heart had been shattered once again. The traumatized and wounded stared into space as they were treated by those who had been desensitized to all of this long ago. As Hiccup scanned the area, he realized something didn't feel quite right.

"The workshop!" He yelped, "Where's the workshop?"

He sprinted in the direction of his and Gobber's home.

It had been reduced to a pile of rubble.

"Gobber!" Hiccup cried as he pushed himself into the nearly dismantled building. "Gobber!"

He found the man pinned under a giant stone slab that had once been their back wall. He was heaving, and it wasn't very hard to see that he had trouble building. The naive little thing he was, Hiccup attempted to push the stone off of him. "It's okay, Gobber! I'm here! I'll help!" Hiccup found himself unable to stop the tears pouring down his cheeks, "Everything's okay!" Something in his gut told him that it wasn't that simple. Why was he crying? Everything was going to be fine, right?

"You can stop, laddie," Gobber croaked.

"But you're stuck!" Hiccup pointed out, hastily mopping tears from his face. "I can do it, Gobber!"

Gobber closed his eyes resignedly. "Lad, this is one of the things you can't fix."

"No! I got it! Gobber, you can't-"

"Keep your loved ones close, Hiccup. You're just a boy but I know you'll do well." Gobber's eyes grew sad, "Unlike me, I failed your father. I promised him that I'd… protect you… but look at me… having to leave you earlier than I intended…"

"My dad?"

"He will come back one day. He had to leave… to save your mother. At… Central…"

"Gobber!" Even Hiccup knew that Gobber's shallow breaths meant that there wasn't much time left.

"I'm sorry, Hiccup." Gobber's chest heaved once more, then grew still.

The boy just stood there, frozen. His father and his mother had disappeared when he was only a toddler, making Gobber the only paternal figure he could remember. While he had been more of a goofy uncle, he had taught him some valuable things, as well as his craft.

His hands curled into fists, his breathing rapid and shallow. Tears cascaded down his face. How could this happen? How could he let this happen? He should've been here, with Gobber, instead of frolicking with Astrid…

Right on cue, Astrid's voice pierced the silence. "Hiccup? What-" Her words died as she stepped inside, spotting Gobber. When she spoke again, her voice was wavering. "Hiccup, the building looks like it's going to collapse… come over here."

He didn't respond.

"Hiccup!" She called a little more loudly.

When he failed to respond a second time, she ran in and grabbed his hand, dragging him outside with her. "Astrid, what do you want?" His eyes flashed angrily.

"You can't stay in there! The building will-" As those words were leaving her mouth, the little hut collapsed.

"Gobber…"

Astrid pulled Hiccup into a hug. She knew from personal experience that words sometimes seemed ingenuine. Actions spoke louder than words.

After a while, she murmured, "I'm here for you too, Hiccup."

"I know."

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 **So... um... yeah! That's it for now, I hope you guys enjoyed it! Don't forget to fill out the survey and please review, favorite, and/or follow if you liked it! Don't be afraid to PM me with questions or anything. I guess that's it. Thank you so much for reading, have a nice day!**

 **\- SoManyFandoms OwO**

 **P.S. Go check out "Hailey" it's pretty good, I heard.**


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